Michal Kořan is the President of the Board and founder of the Global Arena Research Institute an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Masaryk University in Brno, where he received his Ph.D. in 2008.

His professional focus revolves around issues of globalization, technology, global politics, and security. Previously, he was mostly focused on issues related to the Central European region. In 2017 and 2018, he has served as a Deputy Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Central Europe. Until June 2017, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations based in Prague (Czech Republic) where he previously acted as a Deputy Director (2013 – 2016) and a Head of Research (2009 – 2013).

In 2012, he was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at the Harvard University. In 2007 – 2017, he was the lead-author of an annual book analyzing Czech foreign policy and founder and programme chair of an annual International Symposium Czech Foreign Policy.

In 2013 – 2014 he was a vice-chairman of the Programm Council of the Czech-Polish Forum. He was, among others, a national co-coordinator of the Think Visegrad platform, a main coordinator of the Strategic Grant of the International Visegrad Fund The Visegrad Group in the Post-Lisbon EU: Getting Closer to Move Further as well as the strategic IVF grant V4 CARE ARSEC. He was also main researcher of a multi-year grant project Czech Foreign Policy and the Post-Western Global Order. His texts has been published, among others, in journals European Security, Osteuropa, Perspectives, Journal of International Relations and Development and in publishing houses Palgrave, Routledge or Rowman and Littlefield.